


Mother's Eyes and Mine

by Magical_Destiny



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Frigga (Marvel) Feels, Gen, Infinity War possibilities, Loki (Marvel) Feels, Loki (Marvel) Redemption, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Pre-Thor (2011), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Thor: The Dark World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 12:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12770901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magical_Destiny/pseuds/Magical_Destiny
Summary: Loki believes that Hela is Odin’s daughter. He knows just as surely that Frigga is not her mother. He has often scorned the bonds of family, but he knows better than anyone what it means to be a child of Frigga.





	Mother's Eyes and Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [mrstater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrstater/pseuds/mrstater) for betaing! <3

_... it forced_

_Those waters from me which I would have stopp'd;_

_But I had not so much of man in me,_

_And all my mother came into mine eyes_

_And gave me up to tears._

_-Henry V_

===

When he examines his childhood through memories, Loki understands his mother’s heart. Always she would call him away when the court cheered for Thor and his victories on the training fields. Even Odin could not avoid words of praise for such feats of reckless skill.

But sometimes Loki would walk among the courtiers and warriors, disguised so he might hear their true thoughts. “See how strong the prince is,” they’d murmur in admiration. “He is so very like the All-Father. He will wield Mjolnir before many years pass.” Loki knew without question that they were only ever speaking of Thor. 

Beyond his strength, he did not think Thor resembled their father in manner or appearance. Thor was loud and foolish where Odin was silent and sharp. In old paintings, Odin’s hair and eyes were black as ravens’ wings. He looked like the darkness before the dawn of the world. Thor’s eyes were the sky and his hair the sunlight, painted from the same palette as their mother. Her blue eyes always found Loki when he was cloaked in illusion and gently drew him out of the crowds and away. 

No one murmured in excitement when he mastered every new spell she challenged him with, but in those moments Loki enjoyed silence. And her proud smile had been enough, for a time. 

When he decided to conquer Earth, he thought only of what Odin would say. Words of praise would finally drop from his lips and ripple through the court. _How very like the All-Father the prince is_ , they’d say. _How much he resembles his father! Not only in likeness, but in cunning and skill!_ How they’d hail the victorious conqueror. Asgardians cared only for strength, after all. 

Yet when he returns in chains, neither Odin nor the court is there to meet him. There are no whispers of admiration, no exclamations of delight. Only his mother, waiting in silence. The disappointment in her eyes nearly crushes him.

===

Perhaps love, like everything else, is an elaborate lie. 

Lie or not, _something_ rends Loki’s heart when a guard approaches his cell and speaks in tones weighted with grief. 

“Your highness…the queen is dead.” 

He destroys everything inside his cell—all except the books she’d brought him, he can’t touch them, can’t even look at them—and screams until his throat is raw. He forces the rage and anguish out of himself, but it’s a flood without end. Eventually, he drowns. 

Perhaps a lie repeated often enough can become truth. Or perhaps there is no difference in the first place. Surely it does not matter when the effect is the same. Whether love is truth or a lie, part of Loki rips away and dies with her. 

===

He hears the full story eventually. He asks, and Thor tells him. Quietly, with many stilted pauses to draw breath so his voice will not break. Of course she died defending a wretched mortal girl. Much as she’d once held her younger son and soothed away his nightmares and tears. Frigga of Asgard, a matchless queen: never bowing to monsters, forever stooping to protect. 

===

He binds Odin with a spell he learned from his mother and tries not to think of what she would say to how he’s put it to use. Sitting on Odin’s throne and wearing Odin’s face, he sets about righting the accumulated wrongs of many centuries, starting with giving himself a hero’s funeral and erecting a tall, golden statue. The triumph tastes like dust, as always, and he can’t fathom why. He thinks of building a statue to honor Frigga, but the words dry up in his mouth. Perhaps he doesn’t want to honor her. 

It’s a lie, of course, and not one he can maintain even to himself. The truth is much simpler: he can’t bear the thought of her eyes following him now. 

===

They have a sister. Hela, goddess of Death, Odin’s secret firstborn. At last Thor gets a taste of having _his_ place usurped. She was first of Odin’s offspring to be banished and first to be imprisoned. Neither of them is unique after all, it seems. 

“You sound like him,” she says to Loki, sharp and disdainful. 

Finally someone sees that there is something of Odin in him after all. Deceit and cunning were not an anomaly in his heart—they were an inheritance. 

He believes easily that Hela is Odin’s child. He knows just as surely that Frigga is not her mother. Loki can see his mother sometimes when he looks in the mirror. Not her likeness, of course, which he couldn’t possibly share. But it was her face that had taught him to smile and frown; he cannot help but wear her expressions. And there is something of Frigga deeper still, behind his eyes. Love leaves a mark more vivid than a branding iron. In Hela’s eyes, there is only emptiness. 

A life with Odin and without Frigga. For a brief, foolish moment, Loki almost pities the goddess of death.

===

He goes to Thor, deep in the filthy holding cell where the champions are kept. He goes though Thor had never come to see him and certainly not with the intention to help. 

Thor doesn’t want his help, of course. The sting of rejection doesn’t lessen through years of experience, Loki finds. He takes himself away, his projected image scattering into shards of broken light. He tries not to think of another cell and another image. Another hand outstretched and rejected. Frigga’s sad smile when she, too, disappeared like an inconsequential mist and he never saw her again.

===

It has been only weeks since Loki set foot in the palace, but it feels impossibly longer. His boots slap against the gilded floors as he runs with all possible speed toward the vaults. In every chamber and corridor, there is a memory. Here he’d hidden with Thor when they’d escaped their tutor, here they’d feasted after battle, here father had scowled at the mess they’d made, here mother had chastised them. “I wish you would not fight with your brother,” she'd urged, again and again. If he were to pause, turn around, peer into the shadows, he feels sure he would find her there. Always only a step away. His breath catches, but he does not pause or stray from the path. Even here, he can feel the rumbling of the distant battle. There is no time. 

_I wish you would not fight with your brother_ , his mother whispers to him across the years. He seizes the skull of Surtur and, for once, Loki does as he is told. 

===

He has an infinity stone in his hands, and all Loki can think to do with it is return to his people and his brother. He would have scoffed at the thought once. He strides into Thor’s quarters and finds him at once changed and exactly the same. With his hair shorn and one eye missing, he looks grim and dangerous. 

He looks like their father. 

The tension and the grief on his face eases when he recognizes that Loki is not an illusion. He wraps Loki in a brief and crushing embrace. Ah, Loki thinks. Father’s face and Mother’s heart.

===

It is said that Thanos loved Death so deeply he’d tried to woo it as one would a woman. Loki doesn’t know if Death can be wooed. In his experience, it comes uncourted. When he looks in Thanos’ eyes, he knows there is truth in the tales. 

“Loki of Jotunheim,” The courter of Death says, his voice as cold and merciless as a blade. “Son and slayer of Laufey. Disfavored son of Odin. Twice a traitor and many more times a failure. You could not take even the Earth—a pitiful prize.”

Fear is potent in Loki’s veins. He feels sure his answering smile is glittering with it. “You’ve forgotten one of my titles,” he suggests lightly, swallowing against the terror clawing at his throat. Thanos has stared at Death; it is reflected clearly in his eyes. Loki refuses to look away. 

“Your other titles are not worth much, son of abandonment and treachery. Lie smith. Silver tongue. Lover of chaos. God of mischief. You’ve made your last mischief, I think.” He raises the hand bearing the Gauntlet and the primal urge to _run_ very nearly overthrows Loki’s resolve. But he summons a memory to shore up his courage: Frigga standing before him in his cell, asking a question. _Am I not your mother?_ His answer at the time pains him now. 

His feet remain firm on the ground. 

“You know much, Thanos. But you still don’t know who I really am.”

“A fool as well as a traitor,” Thanos says with a grin, but there is impatience at the edge of his smile. Loki knows he can’t hold his attention much longer. 

In his mind’s eye, he goes back to a cell beneath a golden palace that no longer exists and faces his mother, her question still hanging in the air. He projects his voice to her in the way she’d taught him long ago, so she could hear him wherever he was. So often he’d failed to make use of that gift. He hopes she can hear him now. 

He pronounces clearly, “I am my mother’s son.” 

He has held Thanos’ attention as long as possible. Standing, for a moment, between him and the rest of the universe. Just as Frigga the queen had once stood between evil and a frightened mortal girl. There is very little glory in risking one’s own life to protect others, Loki finds. Doing the right thing tastes like terror. When the Avengers attack, he’s only too glad to relinquish the spotlight. 

Death comes, uncourted, but not unexpected or even unwelcome. Time slows as the final battle unspools around Loki. He can’t be sure which of them Death will choose to take away with her, but he has every intention of influencing her choice. He calls his blades to his hands and joins the fight. 

He feels sure Frigga is smiling. 

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote a fic about Loki and Frigga's relationship...a full four years after The Dark World lol. I suppose the added context of Ragnarok inspired me. Let me know if you enjoyed? To quote Tony Stark: "What does the author want? She wants an audience. This is opening night and she's a full-tilt diva. She wants flowers, she wants parades, she wants a monument built to the skies with her name plastered--son of a bitch. She wants _comments_." 
> 
> ;)


End file.
